Journal of Cognition最新文献

In cognitive control tasks, participants are typically instructed to respond to a task-relevant dimension of a stimulus while ignoring the task-irrelevant one(s). In such experiments, task conflict reflects the additional effort associated with performing two tasks, such as identifying the color while reading the word in the color-word Stroop task. Task conflict is commonly inferred by comparing conditions that consist of two tasks (e.g., congruent and incongruent trials) with conditions that only consist of one task (meaningless non-word neutral trials). In three experiments, we used a color-digit Stroop task that varied in the difficulty of the irrelevant dimension of the stimuli, with these differences explicitly examined in a separate control experiment. While information conflict was evident across all experiments, we found differences in task conflict, so the harder it was to perceive the task-irrelevant dimension, the stronger the task conflict became. These findings demonstrate for the first time that task conflict emerges on a continuum, scaling with the level of engagement or processing demands associated with the irrelevant task. Moreover, these results suggest that our ability to inhibit the involuntary activation of an unwanted process is restricted. Therefore, despite the resource-intensive demands of completing the irrelevant task, it still takes place.

Theoretical models of attention propose that norepinephrine (NE) can induce both a global boost of arousal and selective amplification of high-priority stimuli, yet few tasks have tested these dual effects in humans. Here, we used pupillometry in an auditory detection task, the Competitive Attention Test (CAT), previously performed in large cohort studies, to examine how task engagement (active vs. passive) and stimulus relevance (informative vs. uninformative cues) modulate arousal. Results showed that both relevant and irrelevant sounds elicited larger pupil dilation under active conditions, indicating a global arousal effect. Crucially, only relevant sounds benefited from an additional dilation when preceded by an informative cue, demonstrating a selective arousal mechanism associated to top-down attention. These findings illustrate the NE's dual role in boosting overall alertness while selectively enhancing high-priority stimuli. Beyond theoretical implications, this work highlights that the CAT captures measurable arousal components, reinforcing its utility for clinical assessments of attention-arousal clinical disruptions.

In choice between frequent and infrequent responses the Simon effect is larger for the frequent than for the infrequent response. We arbitrate between three hypotheses to account for this finding. The first hypothesis holds that it is a straightforward consequence of biased response preparation. The second hypothesis posits a facilitation of the shift of visual attention to the side of the prepared response in addition, and the third one an effect of the different frequencies of congruent and incongruent trials associated with the task-irrelevant stimulus locations. In three experiments we show the modulation of the Simon effect by relative response frequency, its independence from the distance between hands and monitor, and its almost complete elimination by valid response cues. These findings are in line with a primary role of biased response preparation. Consistent with this conclusion, in a model-based analysis, using extensions of the Leaky, Competing Accumulator model, differences between the probabilities of preparing the frequent and infrequent response were sufficient to produce the modulation of the Simon effect, though only poorly its dynamics as assessed by delta plots. However, these dynamics were produced by a model which implemented the hypothesis that response preparation implicates shielding against distraction in addition to anticipatory response activation. According to simulation results, the modulation of congruency effects by relative response frequency might depend on the particular type of congruency effect, specifically the temporal offset between the impacts of relevant and irrelevant stimuli.

This research investigates the moral Foreign Language Effect (mFLE) from a metacognitive perspective. Grounded in the Dual-Process framework, previous research posits using a foreign language evokes more utilitarianism by dampening emotional responses and promoting analytical reasoning. However, the role of metacognition remains underexplored. The study hypothesizes that reasoning in a foreign language will lower the Feeling of Rightness (FOR), reflecting increased uncertainty and prompting more reevaluation. Adopting a decision-redecision paradigm, participants' responses to moral dilemmas in their native and foreign languages were compared. Analytical methods included linear mixed effects models to evaluate language effects on decisions, decision times, redecision times, FORs, Final Judgment of Confidence (FJC), and decision reversals, with language proficiency considered as a potential moderating factor. Across two preregistered studies, results indicated that while there was no FLE in moral decisions or inclinations, foreign language impacted metacognition. Study 1 found that foreign language significantly increased decision times while lowering FOR and FJC with a higher rate of decision reversals. Study 2, using a Process Dissociation approach, revealed a nuanced understanding of FLE on metacognition in relation to relative proficiency and specific dilemma sets. Across both studies, lower FOR was consistently correlated with longer redecision times and a higher probability of decision reversal, confirming its role in prompting analytical thinking. The findings aim to further enhance the understanding of the FLE, providing insight on how language might alter metacognitive monitoring and control. This research holds implications for decision-making in multilingual contexts, emphasizing language's role in cognitive and metacognitive processes.

Humans are strategic animals. We constantly make prospective choices, allocating limited resources in situations of uncertain, future outcomes. The management of our finite monthly budget, financial investments, or the allocation of time to the different questions in an exam are just a few examples. In these scenarios, both decision-making and resource allocation tend to fluctuate over time even under invariable set of constraints. However, it is unclear whether these fluctuations affect performance and whether they underlie additional objectives beyond pure reward maximisation. We address these questions using the breadth-depth dilemma, a novel ecological protocol where participants engage in sequential multiple-choice scenarios characterised by limited capacity. We designed two experimental environments. In one environment, optimal performance, formalised with an ideal allocator model, is associated with homogeneous resource allocation across consecutive choices. In contrast, the other environment entails that fluctuating resource allocation leads to greater expected rewards. Our study evaluates participants' adherence to these scenarios and measures fluctuations as deviation from homogeneous allocations. The results revealed that participants' behaviour fluctuates more than optimal, but critically, behavioural fluctuations adapt to the available capacity and the environmental context. Moreover, our findings unveil pronounced sequential strategies, such as save-for-later and reward history-dependent choice, further implying that these strategies contribute to decision variability. An extension of the optimal allocator model demonstrates that the characteristic excess fluctuations facilitate better-informed future choices (information gain), reduce uncertainty (risk avoidance), and generate diverse potential strategies (entropy seeking). Although having a modest impact on performance, these strategies may reflect advantageous behaviours in the long run under ever changing real-world environments.

Individuals vary substantially in their language skills. The Individual Differences in Language Skills Test Battery (IDLaS) is a tool to assess variability in (1) linguistic experience, (2) general cognitive skills implicated in language, including nonverbal processing speed, working memory, and nonverbal reasoning, and (3) linguistic processing skills, including word- and sentence-level production and comprehension. The test battery was initially developed for Dutch language users. Building on this work, we recently developed a German version (IDLaS-DE). IDLaS-DE consists of 30 behavioral tests that have been validated in a large group of German speakers, aged between 18 and 30 years. In addition, we have developed a web platform that researchers interested in assessing language and general cognitive skills can use for their research purposes. Here, we provide a guide for creating and running customized studies online via this platform. The IDLaS-DE web platform and all its services are free of charge and accessible at https://www.mpi.nl/idlas-de.

Singapore English is a dialect of English spoken by individuals living in Singapore, whose colloquial form (i.e., Singapore Colloquial English) contains unique lexical items not found in dominant dialects of English. The absence of these items from the lexicon of dominant English dialects indicates that lexical-semantic and affective norms central to psycholinguistic research do not exist for these Singapore English concepts, and it is unclear what is the specific influence of these effects when processing Singapore Colloquial English words. The present paper describes the development of valence, arousal, concreteness, and humor norms for a core vocabulary list of approximately 300 words and concepts, via human ratings and probing a Large Language Model, and evaluates the contribution of these norms to account for lexical processing performance in a visual lexical decision task. Results indicated that valence, arousal, and concreteness explained additional variance over and above orthographic similarity and word frequency in the visual lexical decision task. Specifically, Singapore English words that were more positively valenced, highly arousing, and more concrete, were responded to more rapidly and accurately. In addition, although there was generally a high convergence of valence, arousal, and concreteness ratings across human raters and the Large Language Model, humor norms were much less closely aligned. Overall, this paper provides a case study of how psycholinguistic research can be extended to diverse, understudied dialects of English, and showcases how doing so offers an opportunity for psycholinguistics to examine the importance of various lexical-semantic and affective measures to quantify lexical information in colloquial, informal language.

Features of word form (e.g., the vowel i as in meet) are associated with word meaning (e.g., positive valence), termed sound symbolism. Experimentally, sound symbolism is predominantly examined using pseudo-words. The present research employs a new experimental paradigm where participants are shown faces and are asked to choose a suitable name from memory for each face. In two experiments (total N = 399), we tested whether valence (manipulated via facial expressions, Experiment 1a, or likability, Experiment 1b) influences the occurrence of i-phonemes and o-phonemes in first names. To test convergent validity, a corpus analysis (Study 2) examined the association of likability and the occurrence of i-phonemes and o-phonemes using a representative corpus of German first names. Consistent with previous findings, names given to positively (vs. negatively) valenced faces more frequently contained i-phonemes, whereas, unexpectedly, valence did not influence o-phoneme occurrence. Thus, the naming paradigm bridges the gap between controlled pseudo-word experiments and the natural use of real names and can be employed to examine whether sound symbolic associations are stable enough to generalize to meaningful words.

Feeling of agency (FoA)-the experience of controlling one's actions and their outcomes-has been widely studied for bodily movements. Here, we investigated if microsaccades-small ballistic eye movements-are equally characterized by FoA and if intention mediates this sense of control. We measured FoA via intentional binding, a perceived compression between an action and its effect. In our experiments, we presented a vertically oriented grating, rendered invisible during stable fixation by a rapid temporal phase shift (>60 Hz) that became visible when its retinal motion was slowed down by a microsaccade (active condition). The stimulus was embedded in a clock face and observers reported perceived stimulus timing in each trial. Perceived timing of microsaccade-contingent stimulus perception was compared to the replay of a previous microsaccade's retinal consequence (replay condition). Trials without a stimulus were included as a control. To examine the role of intention, we tested this paradigm across two experiments in which observers were either instructed to saccade (intended microsaccades) or fixate (unintended microsaccades). In Experiment 2, no instruction was administered such that any microsaccades were considered spontaneous. Microsaccades-either actively generated or replayed-consistently rendered the stimulus highly visible compared to trials without such movements-provided microsaccade direction and peak velocity aligned with the stimulus's motion. Temporal estimates did not differ between the active and replay conditions for any microsaccade type. This result suggests the absence of temporal binding between eye movements and their sensory consequences, and that intention does not facilitate FoA for small eye movements.

Significance statement: Eye movements reflect our decision to closer inspect an aspect of the environment-bodily actions that align our perception with a preceding intention. Here, we investigated if microsaccades-a ballistic, minuscule type of saccade-can be characterized by a feeling of agency: the faint experience of affecting change through intentional actions. In two experiments, we presented an identical stimulus whose visibility was either gaze-contingent (active condition) or independent of eye movements (replay condition). In Experiment 1, we directly compared intended and unintended microsaccades and contrasted them with spontaneous microsaccades in Experiment 2. We found no difference between the active and replay condition for either eye movement type. Our data, hence, does not support feeling of agency for microsaccades. While it remains an open question if large saccades are characterized by feeling of agency, our finding demonstrates that intention is not sufficient to elicit feeling of agency for minuscule motor acts.

Perceptual disfluency, induced by blurring or difficult-to-read typefaces, can sometimes enhance memory retention, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. To investigate this effect, we manipulated blurring levels (clear, low-blur, high-blur) during encoding and assessed recognition performance in a surprise memory test. In Experiments 1A and 1B, response latencies from a lexical decision task were analyzed using ex-Gaussian distribution modeling and supplemented by drift diffusion modeling. Results showed that blurring differentially influenced parameters of the model, with high-blur affecting both early and late-stage processes, while low-blur primarily influenced early-stage processes. Recognition test results further revealed that high-blur words were remembered better than both clear and low-blurred words. Experiment 2 employed a semantic categorization task with a word frequency manipulation to further examine the locus of the perceptual disfluency effect. Similar to Experiments 1A and 1B, high-blur influenced both early and late-stage processes, while low-blur primarily affected early-stage processes. Low-frequency words exhibited greater shifting and skewing in distributional parameters, yet only high-frequency, highly blurred words demonstrated an enhanced memory effect. These findings suggest that both early and late cognitive processes contribute to the mnemonic benefits associated with perceptual disfluency. Overall, this study demonstrates that distributional and computational analyses provide powerful tools for dissecting encoding mechanisms and their effects on memory, offering valuable insights into models of perceptual disfluency.